Quebec

Quebec, Canada's largest province, is partly detached from the rest of Canada by Hudson Bay and faces both Europe and the heart of North America. Representing 15.5% of the surface area of Canada, the province occupies some 1.5 million square kilometres, an area three times the size of France and seven times that of Great Britain. A distance of 1700 kilometres separates towns in the Gaspé region of the province's eastern extremity from Ville-Marie in the northeast. Quebec has common borders with Ontario, New Brunswick, and Newfoundland, although Quebec still disputes the exact location of the Labrador boundary.

Home to a large portion of Canada's francophones (French-speakers), many of whom regard Quebec's language and culture as so different from those of the rest of Canada that Quebec should be a separate country. The rest of Canada keeps agonizing about whether to change the Canadian constitution to deal with this. The Quebec debate has a passionate and even bloody history. The Front de Libération du Québec (FLQ) bombed Montreal in 1963, kidnapped the British trade commissioner in 1970, and kidnapped and murdered the Québec labour and immigration minister Pierre Laporte in October, 1970. This last incident led to the October Crisis, when then-Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau invoked the War Measures Act, under which 465 people were arrested.

Since then, there have been at least two major constitutional wranglings whose purpose was, in part, to try to make the Quebeckers happy: the Meech Lake Accord, in the mid-1980s, and the Charlottetown Accord, in the early 1990s. Neither was accepted by the Canadian people. In October of 1995, Quebeckers voted to stay in Canada 50.6% to 49.4%. In April 2003, the separatist Parti Quebecois party was voted out of power, the Quebec people instead installing the federalist Liberal leader Jean Charest as their new premier.

Chateau Frontenac, Quebec City

Chateau Frontenac is a French-style hotel on the St. Lawrence River in Quebec City, the capital of the province of Quebec. Architects designed the hotel to resemble a European castle, taking its name from one of New France's early governors, Comte de Frontenac. Construction finished on the main entrance in 1893, and the tower was added in 1925.